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I’ve moved my blog again 🙂 I know, geez! If you’re using bumblebeerunning.com to view my blog, then good! That URL isn’t changing. If you were using bumblebeerunning.wordpress.com, that’s going away, so just use bumblebeerunning.com

I was reading one of my favorite blogs and saw that she created “Change the way you see, not the way you look” week. I think this is a wonderful phrase to keep in your head even after these seven days are up. As someone always striving to be fit and healthy, I know how difficult it can be to not be hard on yourself. To remember that maintaining a healthy perspective is one of the best things for you. We’re all on different journeys, all at different points along our path. Instead of always looking at how far we’ve come, at what we’ve accomplished so far, we’re too often apt to look at what we haven’t done yet. Where we’ve slipped. What we could have done better. But we need to transform our thinking to see the positive first.

Change the way you see, not the way you look.

It’s not always easy, because sometimes the negativity just slips in before I realize it. But when I’ve started to say to myself: “You’ve gained back 8 pounds! What is wrong with you? How could you do that?” I try to remember to correct myself by realizing: “You’ve lost 22 pounds and kept that off for almost a year. You’re healthier than you have ever been before. You’re a work in progress, and it’s a great journey.”

When I first finished the triathlon last week it was: “I added SEVEN minutes to my time from last year? Seven minutes? How could I do that? How could I disappoint myself like that?” It soon realized my negativity and transformed it to: “Well, with my more well-balanced focus on the tri, with starting to overcome my knee injury, I’m still pretty close to last year’s time. I finished, I felt great, I was surrounded by the love of my family and friends…and I can’t wait to do it again next year.”

I can’t say enough how much I believe positive thinking has a huge impact on everything in our lives. Start the day with a positive outlook. It sets the tone for everything. Sometimes it’s easier than others, but negative self-talk does absolutely no good. In fact, it does you a lot of quiet, subtle harm. It’s another instance of us knocking ourselves down before we even get started.

Change your thinking and you actually change a lot more than that. You begin to see the opportunities, not the obstacles. You see how far you’ve come, not how far you have left to go. You learn from your slip-ups and move on. You can come to realize the powerful truth in the fact that every day is a new day. And every day, you can be sure you have control over one thing: the way you think.

How did I get this far? By believing in myself more than anyone else believed in me. By truly seeing the positive changes I was making in my life, and being proud of myself for that. By celebrating me. By realizing that I had all the power to make my life how I wanted it to be. By viewing exercise and healthy eating as not just a means to weight loss, but as ways to treat my body the best I can; appreciating the strength and nourishment it brings. By having fun with it! By realizing that my biggest accomplishments weren’t measured in number of pounds lost or the size of my new clothes. By viewing myself as a work in progress, and seeing my journey as a life-long commitment to being the healthiest, happiest and best version of myself.

Yes, I have changed the way I look. But the most important part of my transformation has been in changing the way I see.

Were you starting to get worried? No, I didn’t drown in Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg on tri day (if you’re not up to date, yes, that really is the name of the lake). In fact, I dare say I showed that lake who’s boss! I stuck to my plan of starting in the back, so as not to encounter the same terrifying situation as last year. If I had to do it again, I’d start more in the middle (I got stuck behind some slower people who I just couldn’t get past, which slowed me down) but overall—success! I didn’t have any scary moments, I felt good during the entire swim and I even remembered to use some of the great swim strategies Audrey showed me. Hooray!

I'm out there somewhere!

The bike…..well, the bike kicked my ass. I don’t know what happened, but from the moment I got on the bike my legs felt like lead. I don’t know if I didn’t train enough (I definitely could have trained more, I’m not just being hard on myself there), or if it was just one of those days but the whole biking leg of the tri felt like a battle. There is also a KILLER hill (one mile up) about 4 miles in, which at least 75% of the people get off their bikes for. I’m not ashamed to say I was one of those people, but I’m determined to beat that hill next year. It’s good to have a goal 🙂

The run was good— it’s my comfort zone. I may not be the fastest runner, I may not have the best form, I may not set records, but I’m so familiar with it, it’s like seeing a good friend at the end of a long journey. My knee held out— no pain until mile 3, which is what’s normal for me now, so I was happy. I felt good, but I was really cautious not to overdo it— I didn’t want to cause any further injury to my knee since I need to be focused on getting back to normal!

And then my favorite part…crossing the finish line! Yeah, it’s about the journey, not the destination, but the finish line is always a great feeling. I’ve never doubted my ability to make it there, but crossing the line is still a validation of my effort, determination, struggle and yes, I still feel in that moment a victory and affirmation of the changes I’ve made in my life.

But I can’t lie, there was a solid 24 hours after the race when what was at the top of my mind was the fact that my time for this years tri was seven minutes longer than my time from last year. I was disappointed. Sure, my knee slowed down and shortened the time I had to train. But I didn’t want to make excuses, I didn’t want that to be a barrier to being better. Because if there’s one thing I always want to be, it’s better than myself.

I couldn’t seem to shake my disappointment. Until Monday afternoon, when James and I sat down to watch the video he had taped of the triathlon. On the tape, shortly after I started swimming, you can hear my mom say “…two years ago, she never would have done this…”

And it was precisely the jolt I needed to hear, as I watched myself start to swim. Because she’s right. Two years ago I would have NEVER EVER EVER imagined myself completing a triathlon (let alone two!). If you had suggested such a thing, I probably would have laughed, told you at least 5 reasons why it was a ridiculous idea, and laughed some more. Why had I allowed myself to lose sight of that in the face of seven extra minutes? And as I continued to watch the video, I found the feeling my disappointment hadn’t let me feel. I felt really proud of me. And that’s how I should have felt all along.

Last Sunday, I was once again surrounded by more than 2,000 women of all ages, backgrounds, shapes and sizes. And I have to tell you that in looking back on those moments I realize I think we all too often sell ourselves short. We don’t believe in ourselves enough. We think we can’t or shouldn’t do something because we aren’t the smartest, best, fastest, prettiest, thinnest. Because we don’t have enough time, energy, resources. Because it won’t be easy. Whatever the excuse may be. We don’t even let ourselves start.

But once we do, we’re amazed by what we can accomplish. If you looked around on Sunday, you would have seen a vastly different group of women. But looking closer, I think you see a group of women who are remarkably the same. A beautiful group of women who had surely been toiling over the same goal for weeks, months, maybe all year. Maybe years. A group of women who had the strength to start, and to keep on going.

If all those women listened to the voices of doubt in their heads, I’d have been standing on an empty beach on Sunday. If I listened to mine, I wouldn’t have been there to see it. But I was there, and so were they— a beach of 2,000 amazing, beautiful, fabulous women who will all tell you: If I can do it, so can you.

I read my fair share of blogs, and I feel like everyone everywhere mentions making Green Monsters. Since I’m always looking for new healthy food ideas, I really wanted to try making one for myself! I bought organic spinach at the Farmers Market for this exact purpose and it had been sitting in my fridge waiting to be used since Sunday. Even though I was already running a few minutes late for work this morning, today was the day. I like to avoid coffee a few days before the tri so I can be sure I stay extra hydrated, so I figured the GM would be a nice replacement for my morning DunkinDonuts addiction. Into my (newly purchased!) blender went the spinach, flax seeds, a banana, some blueberries, vanilla soy milk and ice. I have to admit that, while being curious, I was a little skeptical of this concoction. Although I love all of the ingredients separately, I couldn’t quite imagine what they would taste like together. And when I started blending it and it all became this weird grayish greenish blue color….ehhh, I was starting to doubt the outcome.

This isn't my picture (I was in too much of a rush!) but I found this one online...it's pretty much the exact color of my smoothie!

I had to, HAD TO, stop the blender and stick a finger in to taste it. And it. Was. AMAZING! I take back those few seconds I doubted you, Green Monster! You were totally worth being a few more minutes late for work.

Darn me and my ingredients label reading. I couldn’t bring myself to eat my Lean Cuisine lunch today because I don’t know what maltodextrine or xanthan gum are. I didn’t even Google it, I just headed right out to the local market and got a veggie wrap. Which got me wondering what the ingredients in the spinach wrap itself are! Just like trying to eat low-calorie and low-fat, trying to eat naturally requires thinking ahead and planning. Lack of planning often leads to bad choices (especially for a hypoglycemic like me–bad choices that quickly make you feel better) that aren’t the healthiest. Personally, I tend to go straight for the Coca-Cola, or maybe a chocolate bar, or maybe BOTH to fend off the shaky, lightheaded, bee-otchy feeling that overcomes me when my blood sugar is too low. But at the same time, because I’ve tried to take control of my hypoglycemia, I’m used to planning ahead to avoid that feeling.

And this week the planning ahead has gone quite well! I made quinoa for the first time, which was very tasty. I’ve had the box in my cabinet for over a month because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. So I looked up a recipe and voila—quinoa!!! I had it with leftover baked tofu (I found the recipe on Healthy Tipping Point— it was delish!).

I went for a run last night, which went well. NO knee pain! Hooray! It was HOT, but I didn’t want to wimp out on my run because, hey—it could be HOT HOT HOT on Sunday!

Also I am planning on wearing a hat on tri day and I’ve never run with one before— I wanted to get a feel for it. I recently cut my hair shorter and it won’t all go up into a ponytail, so I figured a hat was the best solution for keeping it out of my face. It might seem silly to want to “practice” running in a hat, but something like that could really throw me off if it was annoying or didn’t help! Or if it was ugly 🙂 But it was all good! I love that it says “One More Mile”…for some reason those three short words give me the extra motivation to keep on going!

Saturday was a wash as far as exercise goes. James’ band had a show, and then there was a late-night ER visit for a friend who had a concussion…so we didn’t get home until 7:30 am. That certainly justifies sleeping til noon. I was still very tired once I woke up, and the swim and bike ride we had planned was something I didn’t feel physically OR mentally capable of. So that just meant that Sunday suddenly became a super-active, super-busy (but great!) day. No time to slack off! James & I started off with an hour bike ride, sprinkled with a quick run and topped with a gorgeous view. There is a KILLER hill to get up here, so the fact that our bike ride was shorter than usual didn’t make me feel so bad. I was still feeling really tired, and the fact that it was hot and I was incredibly thirsty didn’t help the overall weak feeling I had, but James really pushed me (in a good way!) to give it my all.
Then it was off to the farmer’s market for fresh veggies and live music by a friend’s band…oh yeah, there was also fresh black raspberry ice cream and organic pizza topped with nasturtium (flowers! On pizza! How fabulous!). We shared, so I didn’t feel bad about indulging.Next up was swimming. We went to a local lake, and since we weren’t town residents it was $17 to get in. 17 dollars! It was worth it, though, because I really need the swim practice. James watched out for my form while I swam some laps. And of course we goofed off for a bit, too, because all work and no play isn’t much fun! Honestly, though, I hate swimming in lakes. It creeps me out a bit. And no one was swimming all the way out to the buoys like I was, so I started envisioning monstruous lake creatures waiting out there to eat me. The good thing about swimming with goggles on is that you can see— and the bad thing about swimming with goggles on is that you can see! Seeing long green slimy grass or even a bunch of rocks makes me think of the creatures that would love to call it home….eww! I think I have too much of an imagination sometimes 🙂 In reality, I know that no lake creature is going to eat me…maybe!

I’ve been on a big organic/natural foods kick lately, and honestly, once I started looking more closely at the ingredients in things, it really started creeping me out. I’ve been looking at calories/fat/fiber for Weight Watchers, and sugar for my hypoglycemia, but I’ve never concentrated this much on everything else. Right now I’m kinda feeling like I’d like to be able to identify the ingredients in my food in a lineup, know what I mean?

For instance, sometimes it’s really hard for me to drink enough water, and I like to put low-calorie flavor packets in them for a little fruity taste. Strawberry banana is my favorite-yum! But hold up…..what is dimethylpolysiloxane? I can barely pronounce it and have no idea what it is, but it’s in my drink mix. A quick Google investigation later, and I’m disappointed to know that I have 4 boxes of this stuff that I bought on sale I will never, ever be able to drink again. Because, according to Wikipedia, dimethylpolysiloxane…

“…is the most widely used silicone-based organic polymer, and is particularly known for its unusual rheological (or flow) properties. Its applications range from contact lenses and medical devices to elastomers; it is present, also, in shampoos (as dimethicone makes hair shiny and slippery), caulking, lubricating oils, and heat-resistant tiles…..As a food additive, it has the Enumber E900 and is used as an anti-foaming agent and an anti-caking agent. This silicone can be found in many processed foods and fast food items such as McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets.”

It’s usually always easier, quicker and cheaper to buy processed foods…but look what you’re getting. I just think there has to be a better way to eat! And I’m trying to find my path to that better way.

To replace my old drink mixes, I found Flavrz drink mixes, which, while not as low calorie, are organic, low sugar, made with real fruit and have absolutely NO artificial ingredients. Brilliant! I’ll take a few extra calories if it means I don’t need to be a chemist to understand an ingredients listing.